One of the basic uses of the world-wide web is to facilitate mass remote commerce via automatically formatted lists of purchasing options on webpages presented to online consumers. These pages offer consumers purchasing or service options in graphical formats with accompanying information that has been created for mass consumption. Some online products or services may need a more personalized experience. Typically the products or services are represented by a single photograph of static product when in reality products or services may be more complex or customizable. Some online help may be in the form of a sales consultation, customized or tailored options, an explanation of context-specific uses, or direct support. However these types of personalized assistance are often provided in the form of non-graphical communications such as a phone or a chat box which are separate windows from the product or service page being browsed.
For large companies, a link may be provided to directly talk with a customer service representative associated with the company. Many large companies utilize telephone call centers to facilitate the receipt, response and routing of incoming telephone calls relating to customer service, retention, and sales. Generally, the customer is placed in contact with a customer service representative who is responsible for answering the customer's inquiries and/or directing the customer to the appropriate individual, department, information source, or service as required to satisfy the customer's needs.
While some companies may have in-house call centers to respond to customers' complaints and inquiries, many companies have found to be cost effective to hire third party telephone call centers to handle such inquiries. These third party telephone call centers may be located hundreds to thousands of miles away from the actual sought manufacturer/company. This often may result in use of inconsistent and subjective methods of monitoring, training and evaluating the customer service representatives. Further, many small companies may not have the time and/or funds to hire and train one or more customer service representatives whether the customer service representatives are located local or abroad.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method that overcome the above identified concerns, as well as additional challenges which will become apparent from the disclosure set forth below.